Sincerely apologies to anyone who tried to find a new post on my blog yesterday. Apparently our server went “walk-about” over the weekend and our IT folks have been working day and night to salvage everything that was no longer operational.  I think that we are in the clear today, so I’ll try to put this post up a day late.

______________________________________________________________________

This is the week where I can’t help but overhear all the talk of the holiday gifts that people are getting for their spouses, partners, kids, friends, or in-laws.  And it struck me that there aren’t nearly enough suggestions for measurement folks who need to just own their geekdom and go big with it.  So here are a few ideas, discoveries, and possibilities.

• Statistics ties.  Any formula, pie chart, or dumb stats pun on a tie.  Because nothing bludgeons humor to death better than a stupid stats pun.
• The children’s book Magnus Maximus, a Marvelous Measurer.  It’s a pretty fun book with wonderful illustrations.  And it’s never too early to stereotype your profession.
• The world’s largest slide rule.  Of course, it’s located in Texas.
• The complete DVD set of the TV show NUMB3RS. This show managed to tease my people with the hope that someday complex math skills could really save a life. And yet, to this day I’ve never been in a public venue where someone suddenly yelled frantically, “Is there a statistician in the house!?”
• A Digicus. They were made in the late 70s and early 80s by the electronic’s company Sharp. Apparently many Japanese were suspicious of the digital calculator when it was first introduced, so the Digicus was created to allow people to check their calculator results against an abacus. And you thought higher ed types were skeptical of change???
• And last but not least, anything by the band Big Data. Yes, there is a band called Big Data. They describe themselves as a “paranoid electronic music project from the internet.”  Okey dokey.

Make it a good holiday break,

Mark